Here, the similarity ended. Nazi Germany invaded Scandinavia in due to Germany's naval war against the British and their American suppliers, and to protect the winter route for iron from Sweden. And unlike the invasion of Poland, the attacks on Denmark and Norway launched a permanent state of fighting in Europe that lasted right down to German defeat in May The brief northern campaign was one of the most successful of Hitler's gambles. On April 9, German forces entered Denmark and occupied the peninsula without serious resistance.
A seaborne and airborne force, covered by a German air screen, then invaded Norway. Despite stubborn Norwegian resistance, and the landing of British and French troops in support in northern Norway, the Norwegian government agreed to an armistice on June 9. However, many German warships were sunk or damaged in this operation. On May 10, Adolf Hitler had his forces in the West -- after months of patient preparation -- launch the attack on France through the Low Countries and the Ardennes Forest farther to the south, which the Allies had thought impassable by a modern army.
A few hours after German troops crossed the Dutch border, an act of long-term significance took place in London when Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister. At that moment, Churchill later wrote, "I felt as if I was walking with destiny. The first weeks of Churchill's premiership proved disastrous for the Allies.
German plans to push heavily armored divisions along forested terrain, supported by waves of aircraft, succeeded well beyond the expectations of many German generals.
The French defensive line was pierced, and within days a gap burst open in the Allied front that could not be closed. The British Expeditionary Force was pushed back toward the sea around the port of Dunkirk, France, and faced annihilation -- until General Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt and Adolf Hitler ordered German forces to stop on May 24 to refit and prepare to break the new French defense line further south.
